Disney’s Hollywood Studios Update

The Magic Kingdom is getting all the attention now with the New Fantasyland soft-openings and Disney’s Animal Kingdom is lined up for the next major expansion with the addition of Avatar-land to the park. The next park due for a major announcement is Disney’s Hollywood Studios and the rumor is that something big is, in fact, coming. I snuck out for a tour of the park on a windy afternoon (thanks Sandy) and found out that there is plenty of change occurring already, even without an official announcement.

Fix-it Felix Jr game has been added to Art of Animation exhibit. Alas, it is locked down so it can’t be played. I

The Pirates walk-through attraction has been pushed back to a December opening. The Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights will entertain November 9 through January 4, 2013. Catastrophe Canyon is getting some love as part of the Backlot Tour refurbishment.

Two other consistent rumors at DHS are that the Beauty and the Beast stage show will get replaced with Tangled and that The Little Mermaid show will be replaced with a Phineas & Ferb show. The logic being that now that the Magic Kingdom has a Little Mermaid ride and a whole area themed to B&TB, there’s no reason to keep them at DHS too. I’d rather see them add a show to the premiere theatre instead of removing a show.

Everyone expects that DHS will get a version of DCA’s Cars Land. However, if there is something you’d rather see, we’d love to hear about it in the comments.

7 thoughts on “Disney’s Hollywood Studios Update”

They need another coaster. Why they haven’t made a monsters Inc ride based on the door scene, I have no idea. It just screams thrill ride. And they still need to compete with the thrill rides at Sea world. Unless they want to build another park to compete with universal.
I really hope they don’t put cars land in. There’s us already to much that is shared between the parks. Come up with something new for DHS.

I have thought that instead of duplicating Carsland in Orlando, they should put the same budget and attention to detail into creating a Monstropolis. You could walk thorough the streets with all the Monsters. Visit the Scare Floor, HarryHausen’s, Mike & Sully’s Apartment – and have the door coaster as your E-ticket. Since Hollywood Studios already has the Streets of America, this would seem to fit right in to me.

What Hollywood Studios really needs is a new Dark Ride and a few new C/D Ticket Attractions.

In a ideal world, they’d merge and expand Pixar Place and Animation Area into one “Land” dedicated to Animation. We’d see something along the lines of Crush’s Coaster or Radiator Springs Racers added along side a new dark ride (Wreck It Ralph could be fun), I’d love to see a Fantasia Dark Ride finally done. A new dumbo style/bumper cars style ride themed to The Incredibles or Princess and the Frog could be cute.. Bring in some Character Meets and retheme restaurants, you’ll have yourself a (mostly new) fully completed land that could keep guests busy all day.

I went to DisneyLand Paris this year. Lovely park. I still prefer Disney World. But if there’s one thing I was begging for leaving, was the addition of this coaster to Hollywood Studio. It would be an easy add on, the plan, etc. are already done. It would fit right in near Toy Story Mania. And it is one of my favorite ride ever on a disney property.

Disney Hollywood Studios needs to focus more on the Hollywood THEME!!! Leave animation characters to the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland for the most part (but allow for the art of animation and how it is made at the Studios park). Tower of Terror does the Hollywood theme about the best in the park. Pixar could have an expanded presence I suppose, but a repeat of Carsland is a bad idea. California Adventure was such a disaster for so long, let it have Carsland so It can heal!
Get rid of the Hat and let Graumann’s be the “castle” at the end of the street again like it was designed to be! Update the great movie ride – get rid of the hug trams in that ride too! They remind me too much of the Universe of Energy. Take them out and replace them with omnimovers.
Retheme rock and roller coaster and please make I blend in better with the area!! Add a new thrill ride or two (well themed) and a few dark ride attractions.

The thing with the hug trams is that they are built to support a group of people , the tour guide and the cowboy/gangster. The tour guide and characters are essential to the ride. An omnimover would take that away from the ride and make it just a dark ride. I do, however, agree that they NEED to upgrade the Great Movie Ride, add a scene, upgrade the scenes and characters and lots of love.

What I find surprising is that many people claim that Studios needs more e-ticket attractions. It technically has FOUR: Tower of Terror, Rock N’ Rollercoaster, Star Tours and Toy Story Mania. If they are indeed going to revamp Studios, they need to be more balanced about it. They need to bring in a new show and maybe one or two C ticket attractions.

Regarding Beauty and the Beast, as much I love the movie and adore the musical, it HAS been around for 20 plus years. The Beauty and the Beast legacy is set in stone, especially now with its own land at the Magic Kingdom. I think a Tangled show would be magnificent as not only do I think it is one of the best movies Disney has produced recently, it needs more exposure beyond the Disney Princess line.

As for Little Mermaid, I wouldn’t be sad if the show were to leave. Yeah, it is cute and the in theater effects are great. However, it is mainly a very pretty abridged version of the movie that relies too much on clips to tell its story. Plus, Little Mermaid is RULING Walt Disney World right now with the Little Mermaid section of Art of Animation and its own castle and attraction at the Magic Kingdom (not to mention it is featured on Mickey’s Philharmagic and it used to be on the Magic, Memories and You). Disney needs to give another franchise a chance to star and capture the guests’ attention. I don’t know if Phineas and Ferb would be ideal, though. I love the show and characters, but one thing to remember is that Disney animated TV shows lack the everlasting legacy the animated features have. Remember when the Disney Afternoon was the it thing of the 90s? How about Kim Possible? All of those were gone the minute the audience grew up and moved away from it. So if something will be replacing the Little Mermaid show, it should be something that may have a long legacy and still be relevant.